Abstract
Head and neck cancer involving the carotid artery is usually unresectable. Such involvement often leads to exposure of the carotid artery and the risk of its blow-out. Carotid covered stent placement may be effective in preventing carotid blow-out; however, thus far, there are few published reports of this procedure. We here present a 65-year-old man who developed neck node recurrence of laryngeal cancer involving the carotid artery, which eventually resulted in exposure of that artery and its impending blow-out. A balloon occlusion test was performed to confirm that the circle of Willis was complete. A covered stent was inserted simultaneously into the affected carotid, enabling us to perform en block resection of the tumor and involved carotid artery as an elective procedure. The patient remained alive and disease-free with no complications or sequelae 10 years after this operation. Despite carotid blow-out being considered imminent, insertion of an endovascular covered stent into the affected carotid artery allowed us to investigate the feasibility of carotid resection while simultaneously preventing that artery’s rupture. Aggressive surgical resection may lead to maintenance of quality-of-life and long-term survival in selected patients.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the help of Yasushi Matsumoto M.D., Department of Neuroendovascular Therapy, Kohnan Hospital, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan in performing carotid covered stenting and a balloon occlusion test in this patient.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
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Imai, T., Asada, Y., Matsumoto, K. et al. Neck dissection with carotid artery resection after insertion of a protective endovascular covered stent for recurrent head and neck cancer: a case report. Int Canc Conf J 11, 119–123 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-022-00533-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-022-00533-2